Field of Light is an installation composed of 7,000 frosted glass spheres that appears to grow organically on the far bank of the Small Lake. Reflecting both the installation and the site's naturalistic park-like landscape, the water serves to extend the scale of the artwork.

Artistʼs Inspiration

Field of Light
was originally conceived in 1992 during a trip I took through the Red Desert in central Australia. Deserts have an incredible feeling of energy and ideas seemed to radiate from them along with the heat. They also have many incongruities: they seem to be infertile, barren places until it rains and they bloom like a veritable Eden. I wanted to create an illuminated field of stems that, like the dormant seed in a dry desert, would bloom after darkness falls with gentle rhythms of light under a blazing blanket of stars.

–Bruce Munro

Watch the Field of Light sprout up from the ground

Materials

—7,000 frosted glass spheres

—7,000 acrylic rods mounted on stakes

—34.8 mi (56,000 m) bare optic fiber

—15 metal halide light sources with hand-painted color wheels

—Each “stem” uses approximately 3.3 watts—or in total 1,950 watts, the equivalent of a large microwave oven.